Wednesday, 24 November 2010

On 26 November [2009], in referring to a magazine's claim that Cherie Blair had attended a shooting party which included Saif Gaddafi, we suggested this was hypocritical and had outraged the families of victims of the Lockerbie bombing.

We accept that Mrs Blair did not attend the shooting party and has never met Mr Gaddafi. We apologise for any embarrassment caused.

Blair instructed lawyers in March about the article, which had the headline 'Outrage as Mandy goes on a country shoot with Gaddafi son (And, surprise, Cherie came too).'

And it's not the first time a newspaper apology has tried to shift blame to someone else. We were only 'referring to a magazine's claim' - don't blame us that we didn't check if it was correct before publishing it.